COVER STORY • Structural Reform of Local Economies • 8 Interview with Ross Findlay, Managing Director, Niseko Adventure Centre (NAC) oreigners Helping to Revive Local Economies in Japan Through Tourism FBy Japan SPOTLIGHT Niseko Adventure Centre (NAC) was founded by Australian entrepreneur Ross Findlay 20 years ago in the southern part of Hokkaido, the main northern island of Japan. It is a company promoting sports and tourism with the aim of expanding the venues for tourists to enjoy the natural environment of Hokkaido through all kinds of outdoor activity such as rafting, Catskiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, and rock climbing. They are a key player in promoting local tourism. Japan SPOTLIGHT held an interview with Mr. Findlay. JS: Would you please briefly like Kutchan, where you have the town as introduce yourself and your well as the resort area, people can wander company? into town, use the supermarket, the hairdresser, the petrol station, and so on: Findlay: I came to Japan in 1989 as a ski that way it is almost like they are living instructor, and started NAC in 1995. It here. started as a rafting company, and we have We have a population in Kutchan of expanded to a whole range of different 15,000 people, and then in winter we get adventures since then. almost 10,000 people on top of that: almost double the amount of people JS: Are you enjoying your spending money in the town. They are business in Niseko? What creating new businesses, for which there characteristics in particular are are lots of chances out there; we have 300 most attractive for you? foreigners living in Kutchan year-round, most either involved in or running their Findlay: Lifestyle. I live here all year own businesses. It also spreads the wealth round, and enjoy the lifestyle of being able around the community, which means the to just jump on a bike and ride or go into community gets behind tourism as well. the forest: the whole sort of scene that is So overall it is a good tourism model at associated with outdoor sports in Niseko. the moment. It is a good place to live and bring up Most of our customers coming in winter children. I think the people in Kutchan are Ross Findlay, Managing Director, Niseko Adventure Centre are from overseas, and just stay for a few (NAC) into their outdoor lifestyle a lot as well; we days, or maybe one or two weeks. have a lot in common. Especially during the school holidays in Australia, a lot of customers are coming from Australia. Our increasing markets include Hong JS: Your facility looks like a good place for customers Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and increasingly Indonesian and Thai from all over the world to stay for a long time and people because of the new Bangkok-Chitose line. We get people from enjoy winter sports. Do you think that makes for the Philippines, mainland China, South Korea and Russia as well; so good business in Japan? mainly Asians. Because Niseko is an international resort, its name is spread around the world. I think over the next few years we will see Findlay: It does not have to be sports, but having people come and other ski resorts in Japan developing these Asian markets, and that stay for a long time means they will spend more money in the is good as well. community and spread it through a wider area. If you have a place 30 Japan SPOTLIGHT • March / April 2016 JS: How do you assess your company’s contribution Photo: NAC to the local economy? For example, do you hire many local people? Findlay: I think we created the summer tourism in Niseko. It sounds like a boastful thing to say, but there was not really anything there when I decided to start a rafting company to create something for people to do, and it all linked from there with people wanting to come to Niseko to do things, and other people started businesses and so on. So yes, our company has had a huge impact on summer, though in winter there are so many foreigners doing so many different things that I do not think we have had that much of an impact. Most of the people working in NAC come from outside. For our summer business we are employing local people as well as those Catskiing — going up to the mountains with the snowCAT instead of by ski lift. The tour for skiing and snowboarding in the powdery snow is great fun. who have worked in the ski resort and want to hang around afterwards. Most of those are Japanese people, and a lot of them have been able to live here full-time, got married or also set up their well. With increased tourism you get increased trade, because people own businesses, which is great. It is a very encouraging thing for become more familiar with other countries’ products. But at the country towns that want to attract and keep young people in their moment most of the companies here have no ability to make that population. But recently there are fewer Japanese people around to contact with other countries and work with them to export their attract; in summer some of the foreign staff stay behind and help us materials. out as well. One of the biggest problems with attracting local staff is that they JS: The Japanese government is very keen on trying cannot speak English. There are also not many young people to stop the decline in population. What are your interested in working in tourism spots anymore. All the ski resorts, views on this? ski schools, rafting companies and so on are having trouble attracting people to work. Findlay: It is the same in a lot of countries, and I guess Japan is at a turning point on deciding how to address this. One of the problems Will Japanese Tourism Be a Big Industry? at the moment, I think, is that everyone is having staffing problems. So it is great to have all these people come and spend money as JS: Japan is now trying to develop tourism as a big tourists, but we cannot properly service them. If you want to have industry. Do you think it has potential, based on your more and more tourists, you will have to be able to service those experience in Niseko? tourists better. That will mean a couple of things. One is better language teaching at schools, which I think the Findlay: Of course it has got the potential. Japan is aiming for government is already focused on, but focusing on it and actually 20,000,000 tourists by the 2020 Olympics, and is going to achieve having it happen seem to be different. The other is the visa situation that this year; we are already at 19,000,000 at the moment and will for working people, which is a very hard one. I think you need to look be well over that target by the end of the year. There are lots of at different areas and work out how to adjust the system to make it people wanting to come, and the yen is quite weak at the moment. easier for companies to deal with those staffing problems. Japan’s job now is to try and utilize the great tourism assets it has on an international level — everything from Hokkaido’s nature to JS: If young people could be persuaded to stay and Kyoto’s temples. settle in the local community, where they could enjoy Japan’s tourism potential is huge. It is a wonderful country. It is working in tourism or agriculture, do you think that unlike any other country in the world. Also with the increase in might be helpful in addressing the trend of people’s interest in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and so depopulation? on, the whole area around here has got an increase in tourism as Japan SPOTLIGHT • March / April 2016 31 COVER STORY 8 Photo: NAC For example, we have the Shinkansen coming to Kutchan, probably not in time for the Olympics but sometime after that. Then from Tokyo you could have some sort of ticket where visitors can get off and on as many times as they like. That way you encourage people to get off and explore those areas on their way up. I think a lot of that could be done with those train routes. Everyone is pretty excited about going on a Shinkansen because they don’t have them in many countries. I think customers have different objectives: people with families, retired people, and so on. Getting the information out there about the interesting spots and the secret little cafés and bakeries and so on is most important, so that when they do come, they are spending money in those communities and staying there for a bit longer, not just, say, climbing up the mountain then going back to the train Rafting on the Shiribetsu river, the cleanest river in Japan. In the distance is Mount Yotei, also station. It is important to get across more of a story for the area, get known as Ezo Fuji. people involved in what they are going to see, and in Japan a lot of that story goes amiss. Have you ever heard David Atkinson talk Findlay: Yes, definitely. But you are leaving out one important thing: about the temples and how the people only stay there for a short most people think that going to Tokyo is more fun.